In case you hadn’t noticed, being “crafty” is popular again. It was popular back in the old days when they called it “surviving,” but then consumerism and feminism happened and being crafty became “stingy” and/or not “fighting the man” enough. Thank God that’s over, because I know the secret glee you tried to contain at camp when everyone had to make those bracelets out of recycled gum wrappers.

On an as-yet unrelated note, I also happen to know how many wine bottles you go through in a month.

Oh wait, it IS related because now your “social drinking” habits can fuel crafts! Or the other way around! Finally, something to do with all those Dom Perignon corks.  Two caveats: I can’t guarantee how well these crafts will work with synthetic corks. Also, if you’re the wine-in-a-box type, these won’t work at all because you won’t have any corks.  Time to upgrade, stingy.

Cork-handled canapé knife

What is a canapé, you ask? I have no clue. I’m guessing it’s spreadable and something I will never be able to afford. You can relax though, because now you can take a perfectly good canapé knife, smash the original handle off of it (Hulk smash!) and replace it with a wine cork. Sure, why not? Downside: You need a canapé knife. Upside: You only need one cork. Or 4, depending on how many times you plan on screwing it up first.

Other materials needed: Canape knife, smashing mechanisms
Level of alcoholism needed: None. Only 1 cork!

Garden plant labels

One of the other popular “I pretend I’m on Little House on the Prairie sometimes” activities lately is gardening. It’s so wonderfully gratifying to plant all these teeny weeny seeds and nourish them like little seed babies until they grow into big, strong plants – and then you realize you have no earthly idea what the hell they are because you didn’t label them. Not to fear! Simply write the name of the plant with sharpie on the side of the cork, skewer cork on one of those little wooden shish-ka-bob sticks, and stick into ground. Voila.

Other materials needed: sharpie, shish-ka-bob sticks
Level of alcoholism needed: How big is your garden?

Coasters

This project ups the ante in both the level of wino tendency needed and the sobriety necessary for actually carrying out the project with all digits intact. The premise is that you neatly slice some wine corks in half, hot glue them to a round floppy disk also made of cork but which you have purchased, and then to neatly slice the edges off, resulting in a beautiful, moisture-soaking coaster. Odds that you’ll cut yourself: high.

Decorative wooden initial

Depending on how much wine you’ve had, you may have reached the point at which you needreminding about basic facts – where you live, what day it is, and perhaps even what your name is. A great way to offset this serious problem is to make adecorative initial out of wine corks to hang on your wall as a reminder! Skill level here is low. Just don’t burn yourself with the glue, if you didn’t already on the coaster project.

Other materials needed: wooden initial, glue gun with glue sticks
Level of alcoholism needed: borderline

Bath mat

In case your tootsies just can’t get enough wine cork, make a bath mat out of corks! Here we have yet another instance of slicing and hot glue-ing. It’s like a larger, squarer version of a coaster, but, you know, for your feet and not for your glass. Get it? Plus, you only need 175 corks.

Other materials needed: shelf paper, glue gun with glue sticks
Level of alcoholism needed: worrisome (or major hoarding skills)

A chair

Yes, you can make a chair out of corks. Not one of those crappy school desk chairs, either. This is a legitimate, full-size, easy chair. I have no idea how comfortable it would actually be, or how to construct it, but the fact that this exists proves that you all have been hitting the wine way too hard.

Other materials presumed needed: duct tape, twine, glue, mad skill
Level of alcoholism needed: You should be in the market for a new liver at this point.

A gigantic sculpture of a cow

Fact: This is real. Fact: It lives in the Napa valley, AKA the land of winos and corks.

Other materials presumed needed: 8,000 bottles of wine, a welder, magic
Level of alcoholism needed: You’re most likely comatose.

The illustrious author of this article, Stephanie Huey, is an itinerant writer, sub-letter of apartments and lover of craft beers. Her favorite sentences are those containing syllepsis or ones that mention Vietnamese food, of which is she is inordinately fond.